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“He-I-We. We need your help” a girl says, standing outside Jason’s apartment, panting.
Jason had almost shot her for appearing on his doorstep. And then almost shot her again when she called him “Jason”. She didn’t seem to perturbed by the pistol in her face either, just staring at him with open desperation.
“Please” she had begged “He said you helped kids” she said and Jason had lowered his gun.
Jason just hadn’t expected Tim to be the person she carries in. in civilian clothing, his eyes closed and breathing slow. Like he’s been sedated. Notably, he isn’t injured.
“What do you need?” he asks now, as the girl sets Tim down on his couch.
The girl stands, taking in the boy on his couch and takes a breath “Me? I don’t need anything”
she says, body language going from “Help me” to “You’re going to need help” in a split second. “I have some things to take care of and you have a child to make sure is OK” she says before she’s out the window. Gone.
Jason thinks about going after her but only for a moment before he turns back to the kid on his couch.
Nobody had seen Tim after Damian had gone out as Robin. He’d completely disappeared and the last time anyone had seen him…well. The confrontation on the bridge had been quite public.
But Jason doesn’t know why he’s here. Knows that Tim would probably rather die than go to the cave. But he isn’t injured. There’s no blood, no tissue damage. Nothing that Jason can see at all.
Maybe there’s a head wound but the girl hadn’t seem worried about anything like that. So Jason doubts it.
But then why? Why bring Tim here? Where has he been? Who is the girl? And most importantly…
Why Jason? Why bring Tim to one of the people who has repetitively tried to kill him? It makes no sense. At least, not until Jason actually starts looking.
Eventually, Jason’s training kicks in and he assesses the kid’s condition. No breathing problems. Heartbeat is a bit fast but steady. No bleeding. No headwound that Jason can feel.
It’s when Jason’s moving to take in his neck and spine that Jason notices it.
It is a bit harder to notice the lack of something than the presence of something. But Jason knows something is wrong the moment he seen Tim’s clear skin on his throat.
There should be a scar there. And Jason knows it. Because Jason had put it there.
Next thing Jason notices is the lighter shade on a piece of Tim’s hair. Not white. But fading. Like Jason’s hair had, after he’d been resurrected.
All of Tim’s scars are gone.
The white streak.
Tim should open his eyes and confirm it for him but Jason’s willing to bet that Tim’s blue eyes are no longer blue.
“Fuck” Jason swears quietly, placing Tim’s head down on a pillow and giving up on the examination. If Tim had gone into a pit, there would be no wounds to keep track of.
At the mere thought of the violent green waters, Jason’s blood turns to ice, freezing him in place as Tim breathes, like it wants him to torture himself with the proof.
Tim had been injured or even dead.
And had been resurrected by the Lazarus pit. The same thing that drove Jason insane for months.
Tim and Jason didn’t have the greatest relationship ever. Understatement, really. Jason had tried to kill him before. Many times. And Tim had avoided him because of that. Which is fair.
But now, Tim’s just as likely to be suffering from the pit rage. And if there’s one thing Jason understands, it’s that the world would not survive a Tim Drake suffering from pit rage. Tim is horrendously competent without the pit blurring lines and making morals a bit shaky.
But that’s already happened, Jason realises. He can’t keep Tim from going into the pit. Because Tim already has. Jason can only deal with the fallout.
And what a fallout it’ll be.
Xxxxxx
Tim wakes up in stages, Jason realises. Watches his eyes start to flicker and then his breathing start to change before it goes back to normal. If anyone but a fellow bat had been watching them, Jason knows it would have gone unnoticed.
“Hey baby bird” Jason says slowly, softly, cautiously, watching as Tim reacts to his voice, opening his eyelids to reveal a mix of blue and green, fighting each other even in Tim’s eyes.
“Jason?” Tim asks, sitting up and moving his hand down as if to cradle an injury. Probably the injury that caused this whole thing. He jolts when he realises that there is no injury. “How long have I been out?”
Jason doesn’t know what to do with this. He’d expected Tim to wake up and be aware of what happened. To be feral, or attack him or at least recognise the pit inside his own head.
Apparently, Tim likes to surprise him just as much now as he did before.
“I-I dunno. What’s the last thing you remember?” Jason asks, still keeping his voice low and slow. Like talking to someone on a bad trip.
Tim gives him the stink-eye for it, but the green doesn’t seem to flare so Jason calls it a success.
“Iraq. Widower. Got stabbed. Dragged Pru out. Passed out” Tim recites diligently, looking at Jason like he doesn’t quite understand.
Jason almost doesn’t want to point it out and ruin it. But he reaches up a hand and tugs on his own white lock of hair, gesturing to a mirror he’d set up.
Tim glances at it, glances away and turns back almost immediately, breath freezing in his lungs.
Tim reaches up, tugging on the white in his hair for a moment before his shaking hand drags along the skin of his own eye, where the green glows stronger.
“The. The pit?” Tim asks, not turning to face Jason in the slightest, still staring at his own reflection with an expression that Jason can’t name.
“The pit” Jason confirms, causing Tim’s hand to drop from his eye to his abdomen, where he rubs along a wound that is no longer there.
“Tim” Jason says, hesitantly, as he steps forward, Tim’s eyes snapping to his immediately, narrowed enough that Jason takes a step back. “I need you to tell me what you’re feeling. OK?” Jason asks.
Tim frowns, closing his eyes and staying silent.
“Nothing. I feel nothing” Tim says a moment later, opening his eyes, the green swirling faster and burning brighter.
“Nothing?” Jason demands and that’s the wrong move. Tim’s off of the couch in a moment and has Jason’s throat in his hand not even a moment later.
“Nothing. I could kill you right now and I don’t even think I’d feel regret” Tim says, eyes almost exclusively green now.
“That’s the pit, Tim” Jason warns, not moving to fight. He knows that it’ll do no good.
Tim’s eyes stay green but he releases Jason’s throat, looking down at his hands with something like apathy.
“I don’t get it” Tim says a moment later “You were mad when you came back. Angry. Volatile. Aggressive. But I don’t feel like that” Tim muses, tilting his head to the side curiously.
Jason shakes his head, stepping forward and taking a breath “The pit doesn’t make you mad. It makes the bad parts worse and the better parts, it shoves down until they might as well not exist anymore” Jason explains. And now he understands. Tim was never really angry in his life. That wasn’t his worst feature. No.
His worst feature was the same as Bruce’s. The way they could switch off and feel nothing at all.
Bury everything under cold hard logic.
But the pit takes it one step further. Tim isn’t burying his feelings. He just doesn’t have any.
Makes the bad parts worse.
And makes the good parts disappear.
Unfortunately for Tim, those two go hand in hand.
He pretends not to care, even though that's the best thing he can do. He pushes down those emotions, like Bruce taught him. Even though that's all he has.
He builds up an exterior wall of emotional indifference.
That's both the best thing and worst thing about him.
And the pit has come up to toy with that feature